A short note.
When we were in China, my wife was surprised at the dearth of Asian-looking dolls on the shelves of toy stores. Friends of ours who are currently in China to bring home their son report the same thing: toy store shelves with plenty of blonde-haired, blue-eyed dolls, but far fewer dolls with Asian features. Even our Manadrin tutor, a Chinese native, told us that she had very few Chinese-looking dolls as a little girl.
Is Mattel's marketing THAT good??? Is this common in other Asian countries?
I'm an uninformed white American, so my opinion is probably useless. ;) But I think it's fairly common. I've studied a bit of Japanese and Chinese and have watched a ton of Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean television dramas. Blond hair and blue eyes seem to be lifted up as an ideal because it's different and because it's Western. I've read various blogs of parents traveling to pick up kiddos. People they meet on the streets seem to be impressed with people from America, ESPECIALLY if they are blond. It reminds me a bit of all the college guys signing up for Japanese and Chinese classes so that they could impress the Asian girl who lived in their dorm. ;) It's exotic because it's different.
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